The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real-time message communication between two or more people. Typically, the communication is in the form of text. The text entered in one computer involved in an IM conversation is conveyed to one or more other computers involved in the conversation over a network, such as but not limited to the Internet.
IM typically requires the use of a client program that facilitates an instant messaging service. Alternatively, an IM service may be used via, for example, a web browser. IM differs from e-mail in that conversations occur in real-time. Most IM services also offer a “presence information” feature, indicating whether people on a user's contact list are currently online and available to chat.
Typically, to initiate an IM conversation with a contact or “friend”, a user selects an icon representing the friend, which causes a conversation window to display. A conversation window typically includes a conversation history window and a text entry area. The text entry area displays a message that a user currently types but has not yet sent, whereas the conversation history window displays the messages sent to and received from the friend, at least since the conversation window has been opened.
In order to conduct a shared conversation, in which more than two participants are able to view and respond to all messages from other participants, a chat room must be created. The creation process for a chat room requires that, at inception, an individual must request and obtain the use of resources such as, but not limited to, the client program referred to earlier, and must manually invite other participants to join the new chat room.
A chat room remains in existence only as long as there is at least one active participant. Chat servers differ in how they measure activity. Permanent chat rooms or IRC sessions sometimes use “bots” that stay alive within the chat room all the time and thus prevent the chat room from closing. In most cases, after the last participant leaves a chat room, the chat room is automatically deleted. When a chat room is deleted, the memory resources reserved for the chat room on the chat server are released.
If a group conversation is to continue across multiple sessions, then a new room must be created. The new room has no history of what conversation may have transpired in prior sessions of the same conversation, nor even that any such prior sessions existed.
The process of creating a chat room and inviting all the participants is very time consuming and cumbersome, especially in situations where conversations frequently involve the same set of participants. Additionally, chat rooms are transient and must be re-created once all the participants leave the room. Consequently, a system that addresses these and other messaging and chat room problems is desired.